1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improvements in manufacturing technology and in particular to improvements in manufacturing technology in computer based manufacturing process plans. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for the measurement of manufacturing technician efficiency and the provision of feedback to the manufacturing technician within a computer based manufacturing process plan.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manufacturing technology has long had as its primary goal the ability to consistently produce a high quality product. Over the years, the efforts which have been made to achieve this goal have been directed primarily to the improvement of the documentation which is utilized by the manufacturing technician or floor operator during the manufacturing process. However, the rapidity with which the manufacturing process evolves often renders hard copy documentation obsolete soon after it has been distributed. The probability that the primary documentation utilized by the floor operator is either downlevel or incomplete will often result in degradation in either product quality or consistency.
As a result of the aforementioned problem, it has been a recent goal in manufacturing circles to implement the so-called "Paperless Factory." The foremost object of a Paperless Factory system is to provide high quality information on the manufacturing plant floor. High quality information in this sense is information which is current, understandable, complete and consistent. Product data currency is a key issue in those areas where manufacturing is presented with frequent Engineering Change (EC) activities. The level of detail and clarity of the information provided to the manufacturing plant floor is important and its value is clearly reflected in the quality of the physical product which is being manufactured.
There are several additional motivations for the implementation of a Paperless Factory. The most obvious motivation is the ability to provide highly current data and configuration management to the shop floor. The information being utilized by the manufacturing technician on the manufacturing shop floor in performing the manufacturing or repair operation should be the most advanced Engineering Change (EC) level available.
A well implemented Paperless Factory will also eliminate or reduce the process specifications and documentation presented in paper format to the shop floor and replace those specifications with on line operator guidance which meets the shop floor requirement of high quality current information. Another advantage of the Paperless Factory implementation is the elimination of the shear volume of hard copy information required for the manufacturing process. It is not uncommon in certain manufacturing processes to require several hundred pieces of paper for building a particular product, such as a jet aircraft.
One possible advantage in the utilization of a Paperless Factory is the effective monitoring and documentation of the efficiency of manufacturing technicians. For example, manufacturing and industrial engineers have long promulgated so-called "labor standard times" for individual manufacturing operations which may be utilized to predict the amount of time required to complete a selected group of manufacturing operations. While these labor standard times are available, there exists no known system which permits an individual manufacturing technician to easily gauge his or her performance against such a known standard.
There do exist many prior art systems which permit the passage of elapsed time or actual time to be noted. So-called "clock and calendar" boards exist which will generate a display of the date and time of day; however, in order to measure manufacturing technician efficiency against a known standard it is necessary to know the start time as well as the completion time and perform real time calculations at each manufacturing operation.
Additionally, "count-down" techniques are well known in systems which provide an indication of the passage of a selected time span. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,086 discloses a cooking apparatus having a graphic display which indicates the passage of the selected cooking time.
None of the aforementioned systems provide a method and apparatus by which the efficiency of a manufacturing technician may be measured by automatically providing a graphic representation which indicates the amount of elapsed time and the time remaining within a predetermined time period for each manufacturing operation.
Therefore, it should be obvious that a need exists for a method and apparatus which permits the automatic and efficient measurement of manufacturing technician efficiency in the performance of selected manufacturing operations and which provides real time feedback to the manufacturing technician to enable the manufacturing technician to improve his or her performance against the measurement system.